Seeking the Light

All living things seek light.

As I was dusting my house yesterday, I had to carefully turn all my plants because they all grow to one side, leaning towards the sun. In a couple of weeks, I will have to turn them again because they will have grown back towards the other side. Both of my dogs kept fighting over the big bed in the sunny window, so I finally moved the little dog’s bed too. Now they are both happy.

That particular window gets the most sun in the house, so I had to put the aloe plant there as well. It just so happens that’s also where my laptop is set up. I find that I like to write by the window that gets the most light.

All living things, including people, seem to naturally seek light. Have you ever noticed that real estate ads usually describe a house as light and airy? I rarely see, really dark with little light, in a description. We like lots of windows and lots of light.

Many people struggle in the winter months with short days and not much sunshine. I know a family who was stationed in Alaska and they had special lighting stations that people were encouraged to visit to help battle depression during the long, dark winter.

Think about how many people flock to the ocean to lie in the sun even though we know too much is not good for us.

Our souls are constantly seeking light too. Sometimes we truly believe that we have found it through our own accomplishments. Good jobs and good salaries can allow us to bask for a while. Winning races that we train for over a long period of time can allow us to bask for a while. New relationships, new houses, frankly just about anything new, can allow us to bask for a while.

The problem is the newness of anything new always wears off eventually and the light dims. We go searching for the ever elusive light somewhere else and each time we can truly believe that we have found it. And, sometimes we lose that job that provided so much self-worth or a relationship fails. Sometimes we get injured and can no longer run. When life throws us curve balls and it always does, eventually, if we have let the light in our lives be our own accomplishments, we can suddenly find ourselves in the dark, with no windows around. What will we do then?

There is another way to feed our light seeking souls. John 8:12, says, “Jesus spoke to the people once more and said, “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.” That sounds promising.

1 John 5-6, says, “This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all. So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth.”

Turns out we are wired to seek light because we are wired to seek God. God is a gentleman. He will not force us to seek Him. He will not force us to seek Jesus. He will stand back and allow us to fumble around in the darkness of our own ambitions, but why would we want to? Why not follow Jesus and never walk in darkness?

Bad things will continue to happen from time to time, but when they do, we’re not in the dark. Our light shines on. Just like the sun, that draws my pups to the window, Jesus is a constant. I think that’s light worth seeking.

What do you think? I’d love to hear from you.

Have an awesome day!

Wendy 🙂